Ruin
by mei0023
Summary: Akira fanfic; Shortly after the Second Coming, Kaneda meets a strange boy...


Legal Disclaimers: I don't own Akira. Tough!   
  
Author's Note: Yeah, this makes no sense whatsoever. So what? I was on a sugar low (aka the "After-Hyper") when I wrote this on a whim. Not much detail in here at all... the reader's imagination needs to be used extensively on this one. Oh yeah, and some OOC on Kaneda's part towards the end there. ^_~  
  
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"The soul, secured in her existence, smiles/At the drawn dagger, and defies its point./The stars shall fade away, the sun himself/Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years,/But thou shalt flourish with immortal you,/Unhurt amidst the war of elements,/The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds." - Joseph Addison  
  
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He already felt the rocks sliding under him. He shifted slightly as the girl next to him turned in her sleep, dozing precariously on the edge of a concrete boulder. A crying child walked by him on the street, stumbling clumsily over its own two feet in its hysteria. The penetrating wailing rang off the deathly silent buildings.   
  
He ran his hand through his closely-cropped black hair, feeling the now-greasy strands smear his hands through the holes in his tattered red leather gloves. His leathery face contorted slightly as he squinted towards the lost child, who had now tripped and landed harshly on its knees in the rubble that was Tokyo.  
  
He sighed slightly and glanced at the sky. Not a single relief helicopter was in sight. All the foreign aid had been was a few air-lifts of food and supplies, and even those that followed were few and far between; survivors of the apocolyptic "Second Coming" often scuffled over the highest point in the ruins of Neo-Tokyo, as to be seen first by the helicopters. None of the foreign or domestic military dared to enter the city- only occasionally was a person removed from the destruction by government scientists to study for any side-effects of the blast. The rest were condemned to live in the rubble until some grace of God could remove them from the scene of blood and filth.  
  
Kaneda turned his tired eyes to the girl at his side- the moon's pale light cast deep shadows on her face as the enormous dust clouds parted sporadically before closing over the starless sky again. He gently brushed fine strands of raven hair out of the face of the one remaining purity in the ruin. Kay fidgeted slightly in her sleep, closing her eyes tightly and curling into a ball.  
  
The child's screams rang again throughout the crumbling buildings. Kaneda grumbled and slid down the collection of boulders towards the young boy. He walked over to the blood-stained boy and knelt down, irritated.  
  
"You okay?" he asked crisply, and the boy stopped crying. His face was hidden by the shadows of a downed skyscraper, and he gradually turned his face to Kaneda's.  
"Kaneda..." the boy choked as their eyes met. Kaneda narrowed his eyes briefly before they shot open with rage and he fell backwards.  
  
He recognized the ruined hospital gown from the orphanage, and the extra-short mess of oily black hair. The sunken, dull eyes and the stickly frame all came shooting violently back to him.   
  
"TETSUO!" he cried, and the boy screamed.  
  
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Kay's eyes shot open, and she lept up as an ingrained reflex from years of resistance training. Her head spun around, surveying the area, before she heard feeble sobbing from the street. She immediately took off, sliding and springing off the rogue boulders.  
"Kaneda!" she cried, running over to the boy who laid prone on his back, his hands folded on top of his head. She quickly knelt next to him as dry, terrified sobs racked his body.  
  
"Tetsuo-," he sobbed in terror, his eyes closed firmly, "Tetsuo-!"  
  
"Kaneda, it's me!" Kay shook him violently. "KANEDA!"  
  
He stopped suddenly. Kay panted emotionally as the boy lay motionless on the ground, making high-pitched whimpers as he opened his eyes slowly.   
  
"Kay...?" he asked, his voice trembling.  
  
"Kaneda, it was a dream." She extended her hand, but he rejected it and sat up, still shaking. She looked at him strangely as he sat silently, staring at the rubble. "Kaneda...?"  
  
Kaneda stood suddenly, and began walking towards the distant remainders of a commercial building. "Kaneda?" Kay called, standing quickly. "Kaneda, come back!"  
He didn't break stride. Instead Kaneda continued to walk, never looking over his shoulder. Kay sat, stunned, and blinked. A tattered hospital gown was snagged on the edge of a rock, ruffling slightly in the breeze. She removed it gently and looked it over.  
  
"Poor child," she murmured to herself, her voice full of sympathy. "Poor, poor child." She rolled it into a tight ball and held it close to her. "Wherever you are, you're with God."  
  
  
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Fin  
  
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Odd, ne? 


End file.
